After two months of a confinement which has just been extended, the city of New York, economic and cultural capital of the United States, still does not see the end of the tunnel, raising growing doubts about the future of this metropolis symbol of crowds and effervescence.
If many European agglomerations are gradually relaunching their economy, the largest city in the United States in population (6.8 million, 20 million with the metropolitan area), epicenter of the American epidemic with more than 20,000 deaths, will remain confined at least until May 28, according to a new executive order from State Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Little visibility
No one knows when its businesses, restaurants or theaters, which attracted millions of tourists, will reopen.
“We must be smart,” insists the governor, who keeps warning against a new outbreak of the virus. Only five sparsely populated areas of New York State have been allowed to restart some commercial, industrial and recreational activities as of Friday.
“We have to be really, really disciplined,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told CNN on Thursday.
Despite the slowdown in the epidemic (the daily death toll is down sharply, below 200, and ambulance sirens have become scarce), the authorities are refusing to commit to the resumption of schools in September, leaving million parents in limbo.
For now, New York is far from meeting the necessary criteria to gradually revive the economy: continued decline in the number of hospitalizations, people in intensive care and positive tests for the coronavirus.
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In the face of prolonged confinement, New Yorkers have so far remained relatively disciplined, despite the dramatic consequences for hundreds of thousands of people now deprived of income, especially among black and Hispanic minorities.
While elsewhere in the United States, protests have multiplied against containment, many adhere to the caution of their leaders. Especially since more than 80 New York children have suffered from rare pediatric inflammation, probably linked to the virus.
The temptation to leave Manhattan
However, the more the economy remains immersed in lethargy, the more uncertainty rises about the future of a city which owes its influence to its density and permanent hyperactivity.
Many affluent New Yorkers have already left to go green, and some are thinking of never coming back. “All the reasons for which we are in New York – restaurants, concerts … – have disappeared”, testifies Hans Robert, 49, IT manager of a large New York bank.
He and his family, for 10 years in Manhattan, moved at the end of April to their country house in northern New York, from where they telecommute. If their daughter’s school does not reopen in September, Mr. Robert does not rule out staying there. Especially since his bank is thinking, like other companies, of allowing its employees to continue working remotely.
The city soon bankrupt?
Another question: the financial health of the city, whose tax revenues have melted with the stoppage of the economy.
The Democratic mayor brandishes the specter of bankruptcy like the one in the 1970s, which dramatically reduced public services and exploded crime.
He begs Republican President Donald Trump to validate a new stimulus plan, concocted by the Democrats in Congress, which would bail out the city to the tune of 17 billion over two years. But the president has already ruled out adopting it as it is.
“New York has known a lot of crises and always ends up bouncing back,” says Maria Kopman, an anesthetist in a New York hospital. Even though everything will not be the way it used to be, “people who come here for boiling, socializing, I don’t believe it will go away.”
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